Europe 2004

Route and Schedule:

Depart Madison by car 10:00 AM October 19

We left Madison pretty much on schedule, and encountered no significant delays driving to O'Hare.

Arrive O'Hare 2:40 PM October 19

Arrived at O'Hare as planned. Spent some time finding the Long-term Parking Lot, getting the shuttle bus and then the shuttle train to terminal 5. We were a little early; the check-in was not open when we arrived. We walked on down to the food court and had lunch before returning to check in.

Depart O'Hare Air France flight 51 5:40 PM October 19

The flight was uneventful. We sat four across in the middle of the Airbus. The people in front of us, as usual, reclined their seats, making our space cramped and difficult to move around in. The supper was good, although not as good as an earlier flight on Air France. It was still much better than any domestic airline.

Arrive Paris CDG 8:50 AM October 20

We arrived a few minutes late. Then it was the bus from the plane to the terminal, followed by a race through the terminal and another bus from Terminal F to Terminal C. Then through security again, and on to the departure gate, all in an hour and ten minutes between arrival and departure time. We got to the departure gate about ten minutes before the scheduled time for our connecting flight.

Depart Paris CDG Air France 1842 10:00 AM October 20

We found out when we arrived at the gate that the flight to Geneva had been delayed. Later on we found that the flight had been held in Paris because of delays due to bad weather in Geneva. The snack on the plane was nothing special; nothing like the nice meal on the Chicago to Paris part of the flight.

Arrive Geneva 11:10 AM October 20

Stay at the Lido Hotel in Geneva October 20 - 22

Phone 41 (0) 22 731 5530

October 20

We caught the train from the airport to the rail station in Geneva. From there we caught a taxi to the Lido Hotel. The three block walk to the Lido turned into a ten minute ride and 15 SF charge. After resting in our rooms for a while we walked around the area of the Lido, browsing in the various watch shops. It seems as if every other shop sold watches. We ate at a restaurant named La Diligence, not oo far from the hotel.

October 21

We went to do our shopping at the former Placet store. It is currently called Manor, but it still has the six red hexagon logo that Placet (and the Boston Store) had. We picked out a lot of chocolates at the request of Andy and Terri. They had wanted some for Christmas gifts. I looked at some bottles of marc, but it seems that all they had was the large liter sized bottles. I wasn't too interested in carrying that so I passed on the marc. We took the chocolates back to the Lido and then walked over to see the church next to the train station. Brian and Barbara went back to the Lido, and after a while Sharon and I followed them. We rested for a while and then went to look for a watch that Barbara had wanted to buy for Kelly. She found one that she liked at a store near the Lido and bought it. We walked over to the Café Willi (kind of like a wine bar) and had some refreshments. Then we went ot look for a place for lunch. We found La Bergerie a couple of blocks down the Rue de Chantepoulet, across the street from the local bus station. After lunch we walked over to the Brunswick Memorial, and then down to the edge of Lake Geneva. After some interest in a cruise on the Lake developed I hurried back to the Lido to get the Eurailpasses, which would act as tickets for the cruise. The cruise lasted about an hour, and covered the end of the lake near Geneva. We ate supper at the Café de la Gare (as you might expect, just across the street from the railway station). We tried their fondue and found it very good. This made us think of having fondue some night after we got home. I walked over to the Post Office to buy some boxes to ship Andy and Terri's chocolates home in. Sharon and I packed up the chocolates and took them to the Post Office. We were was really surprised when I was told that it would not be possible to mail them. Switzerland had stopped mailing chocolates to the U.S. as part of the response to the war on terror. I planned to ship them the next day.

October 22

This was the day of the long train ride. The plan was to visit a museum of Swiss life at a small town near Nyon. The train schedule posted in the station was unclear as to whether the train stopped at that small town, so I asked at the information window at the railway station. I was given a card showing the train to take and that the first stop after Nyon was that town. Well, we rode and rode and before we knew it Brian noticed that we were arriving at Yverdon-les-Bains. We could have taken the bus to see the Frog Museum again, but decided to take the train back to Nyon. We did that, and ate lunch at a small restaurant near the station. Then we took the bus to the museum and found it very interesting. We ate supper at Café de Paris (just a block or so from the Lido), and then stopped at the restaurant on the corner for a before dinner drink.

Depart Geneva to Brig on CIS 37 (p.284) 9:05 AM October 23

We packed most of our stuff the night before so that we could have a leisurely breakfast before our departure. We arrived at the rail station with plenty of time to spare and found our train ready and waiting on the tracks. One nice thing about Eurail passes is that there is no waiting in line to buy tickets. Also, we were glad that we had paid the extra charges for first class passes

Arrive Brig 11:00 AM October 23

We arrived in Brig on time and found the platform for the Glacier express was right outside the rail station where we had arrived. It had been a few years, but when I saw the Glacier express platform I kind of remembered how it all worked from our last trip.

Depart Brig to Chur on Gl. Exp. 906 (p.286) 11:48 AM October 23

There was a lot of shifting and changing cars before departure. At one point we had half the luggage on the train, along with Brian, Barbara, and Sharon, when they started another one of their shifting maneuvers. I smiled, waved, and said "bye-bye" as they all left the station. Brian and Barbara seemed somewhat concerned but Sharon said that she knew that I would have been upset if I thought that they were really leaving without me (one of the attendants had told me not to worry, that they would be back after the cars were properly sequenced).

The trip across the Alps was scenic as always. We did see glaciers high in the Alps, but we were a little early for snow. We have made three trips on the Glacier express. The first was in the winter with Andy, Teri, and Mike. The second was in the summer with Sharon's sister Judy and Mike. On the winter trip the landscape was covered with snow, and the small villages with their snow-covered roofs and church steeples had a postcard-like appeal. On the summer trip the meadows were green and wildflowers were spread among them. This, too, recalled postcard views. I didn't take any pictures on this trip; the lighting was causing reflections on the car windows.

Arrive Chur 4:07 PM October 23

We arrived in Chur on schedule, and spent some time looking for the taxi stand. Once located we waited for a cab, loaded our luggage, and set out for the Drei Konige Hotel

Stay at the Drei Konige in Chur October 23

Phone 41 (0) 81 252 1758

I had selected the Drei Konige because the website description emphasized the age of the building and the preservation of some of the historical features. However, we were distressed to find that the Drei Konige had given our rooms to a tour group. They had arranged for rooms at the Post Hotel, but had made no provisions for transportation to that hotel. Eventually they did call a taxi for us, but they never did pay for it. The Post Hotel was also in the 'old town' section of Chur (Chur is one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland). The Post did have an advantage over the Drei Konige - an elevator. The desk clerk at the Post first recommended the restaurant at the Drei Konige , but we decided that under the circumstances we didn't want to give them any of our business. We ate at the Restaurant Ticino which was located around the corner from the Post Hotel.

Depart Chur for Bellinzona (bus, p.274) 8:10 AM October 24

This promised to be a long travel day. We had to get up early to get to the station to catch the bus to Bellinzona, and then the long train ride to Milan and on to Venice. The bus ride south through the Alps toward Italy provided a different scenic view than the train ride from Brig to Chur. The Glacier Express ride seemed to be mostly small villages, located in sweeping meadows with the Alps on both sides. The road that the bus to Bellinzona took seemed cut from a different landscape. We passed close to steep, rocky cliffs with occasional evergreens and small streams pouring down the slope. The St. Bernard pass and tunnel were also impressive, as were the switchbacks in the road descending from the Alps to the plains of southern Switzerland and Northern Italy.

Arrive Bellinzona 10:25 AM October 24

Depart Bellinzona for Milan on IC355 (p.276) 11:33 AM October 24

Arrive Milan 1:35 PM October 24

Depart Milan for Venice on IC355 (p.296) 2:05 PM October 24

On one of the stops out of Milan we were joined in our compartment (yes, we really tried for compartments - it seemed so continental) by a little old Italian lady. She knew no English, and we could barely say 'good day' in Italian, but we did have an interesting time trying to communicate (phrasebooks, translators, gestures, etc). We found that she was returning home after visiting her nephew and his children.

Arrive Venice 5:09 PM October 24

We arrived on schedule and spent some time in the station locating the Tourist Information center and getting instructions on how to find the Scandinavia Hotel. We were told which vaporetto to take and to get off at the Rialto Bridge stop. The Tourist Bureau person drew a line on my map, and assured me that it would be easy to follow those directions to the hotel. We got off at the Rialto Bridge with all our luggage and started off. It was an unusually warm October night, and we soon discovered that the instructions were not as easy to follow as we had been led to believe. We also found that those beautiful scenic bridges could be a real pain to people with wheeled luggage. After a while we (Sharon) decided that we had better start asking how to get to the hotel. We kept asking, kept getting closer, and finally arrived. In all our time in Venice we never did find the spot where we were when we started asking for directions.

Stay at the Hotel Scandinavia in Venice October 24 - 26

Phone 39 (0) 41 522 3507

October 24

The Scandinavia Hotel was located near one of the larger squares in Venice (St. Maria Formosa). One of our first discoveries was that if we had wanted a hotel with an elevator we should have stayed on the mainland and commuted into Venice. After rolling our luggage and carrying it up and down the steps of what felt at the time like an unending set of bridges, we now had to carry that load up to our third floor rooms. It was worth it. Our rooms looked out over the square. It was a beautiful, scenic view. We walked across the square and had supper, and returned to our rooms.

October 25

Sharon and I were up early and walked down to St. Mark's square. It was a kind of cloudy, hazy morning. We walked around the Square and browsed in some of the shop windows. Then we headed back to the hotel. Barbara and Brian were just bringing their breakfast out to one of tables on the square in front of the hotel, so we joined them there. After breakfast we all walked down to St. Mark's. We browsed some of the high class shops along the square, and went to the Museum at St. Mark's. This museum had a lot of interesting art and artifacts, all of them related to the history of Venice. After lunch we continued shopping and lunched in the area south and west of the square. We walked up to the Rialto Bridge and then took the vaporetto back down to St Mark's. Brian and Barbara had talked to the hotel manager about a good place to have supper. He recommended the Ristorante Cantina Carletto, and provided good enough directions for us to find it. We never would have found it on our own. It was off a small square that we reached by going through a narrow alley. The food was great, and Sharon and I were overwhelmed when Brian and Barbara told us that the dinner was their gift to us for all our work in planning the trip. That was so nice.

October 26

We decided that we had to visit Murano while we were in Venice. Sharon and I got up early, actually located the FedEx office, and finally got Andy and Terri's chocolates mailed to them. Brian and Barbara talked to the hotel manager again and found that there was a regularly scheduled trip leaving at 10:00. We walked down to St. Mark's again and browsed the shops on the other side of the square. We returned to the hotel, and the person leading the expedition to Murano met us and we walked the several blocks to a canal that the water taxis could navigate, that also had a high enough dock that we could safely board. We saw some glasswork at Murano, but soon left the group to wander the shops along the canal. Sharon and Barbara both made some purchases there. We took the vaporetto back to St. Mark's where we toured the Doge's Palace (Brian's comment - "when you've seen one Doge's Palace you've seen them all") after which we split up, Brian and Barbara heading off to locate a shop with some seeds Brian wanted and Sharon and I went to catch a vaporetto up to the Rialto Bridge. We got on at the wrong stop, however, and took a ride around one side of Venice, with several stops at Guidecca. It was a long trip but we eventually ended up at the Rialto and made our way back to the hotel. That evening we ate at Carlettos, a small restaurant that we had passed several times on our way to St. Mark's. We had a good dinner there.

Depart Venice for Milan on IC614 (p.296) 11:51 AM October 27

We rose for an early breakfast, and remembering the many steps on the bridges between the hotel and Rialto we asked the hotel manager if he could find a porter to help us. He showed up with a large cart (we were actually able to fit all the luggage on it). After we finished loading he picked up the handles, set them down, pointed at the load and said 'casa'. I think he meant it weighed as much as a house. At the station we first thought of catching the Eurostar to Milan, but changed our minds when we found there would be a 20 Euro surcharge to our Eurail passes for that train.

Arrive Milan 3:55 PM October 27

Stay at the Hotel Aurelia in Milan October 27

Phone 39 (0) 22 953 2504

Brian and I walked around the neighborhood for some exercise, and to see if there was someplace to eat. The hotel recommended a restaurant a couple of blocks away. It seemed like a small, family run place. The food was very good and plentiful. I think we had good meals at all the restaurants we went to on this trip.

Arrive Milan Linate 6:00 AM October 28

Depart Milan Linate Air France flt 1213 9:35 AM October 28

Arrive Paris CDG Terminal F 11:05 AM October 28

Depart Paris CDG Terminal C flt 50 1:15 PM October 28

Arrive Chicago O'Hare 3:35 PM October 28

Depart Chicago O'Hare by car 5:00 PM October 28

Arrive Madison 7:30 PM October 28

Page references are Cooks's European Rail Summer Timetable 2004.